Childrens Do Learn

On a continuation of a topic I spoke about a couple of weeks ago, Mr. President went against me and insisted that plurals sound better with an “s”.

Check it out here, again he opted to use a grammatically incorrect sentence when speaking of children scores. When I was googling the topic, I got this page which tries hard to correct me, Mr. President: I am sorry but you have to insist the google
keep up to speed with your hip lingo: “Is our children learning?” should be accepted by grammar checkers because it has entered the daily language. You wish.

Radi

I was horrified when I saw this video,

It is actually a video of someone being totally careless and deliberately disruptive, worst of all -حاميها حراميها- those are the people who are paid and entrusted to provide security in Iraq, they are running around shooting at people. Aegis are the people who made this video, they are currently immune from prosecution.

Then, two days before he left Iraq for good, L. Paul Bremer III, the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator, signed a blanket order immunizing all Americans, because, as one of his former top aides told me, “we wanted to make sure our military, civilians and contractors were protected from Iraqi law.”

This is according to this article, because Iraq the land of the Hammurabi code, Mesopotamia, is so horrific in it’s laws that killers and mercenaries need protection from. People focus on the blackwater while there are tens of other companies doing the exact same everyday and no one ever got convicted or even indicted.

Radi

I was horrified when I saw this video,

It is actually a video of someone being totally careless and deliberately disruptive, worst of all -حاميها حراميها- those are the people who are paid and entrusted to provide security in Iraq, they are running around shooting at people. Aegis are the people who made this video, they are currently immune from prosecution.

Then, two days before he left Iraq for good, L. Paul Bremer III, the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator, signed a blanket order immunizing all Americans, because, as one of his former top aides told me, “we wanted to make sure our military, civilians and contractors were protected from Iraqi law.”

This is according to this article, because Iraq the land of the Hammurabi code, Mesopotamia, is so horrific in it’s laws that killers and mercenaries need protection from. People focus on the blackwater while there are tens of other companies doing the exact same everyday and no one ever got convicted or even indicted.

Radi

democracy

This is a quote that really makes you think

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.

H. L. Mencken
US editor (1880 – 1956)

It is true, when you watch the American stories about then potential party candidates and what others are saying about them and the dirt that is being dug up, you can’t help but wonder, is any one of these fit to rule.

I am going to go out on a limb here, I think by 2010 or 2011, there will be PM in Jordan that is actually elected from within the parliament, bu the problem will be that the choice will be so ill-suited that we will feel at once like the Americans.

Radi

Irony

Antione Ghanem died last night, an MP from the March 14 assembly, which includes these people. I wanted to stray off-topic but I had to mention these people to support my point.

Feb 2005: Ex-PM Rafik Hariri

June 2005: Anti-Syria journalist Samir Kassir

June 2005: Ex-Communist leader George Hawi

Dec 2005: Anti-Syria MP Gebran Tueni

Nov 2006: Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel

June 2007: Anti-Syria MP Walid Eido

Sep 2007: Anti-Syria MP Antoine Ghanim

I was watching LBC and they had an ad made of people welcoming kinships and family at the Airport. They ran it beautifully, it was leading to a proclamation that stunned me:

“The Safest Country in the World”

I live in Jordan and while we do have a fear of terrorism in the wake of our 9-11, which happened on the 9th of November almost two years ago, I can guarantee that Jordan is still safer that Lebanon. I can also tell of the Irony of watching a member of parliament not yet 48 hours in the country from his fearful stay outside Lebanon (in Abu Dhabi), foolowed by such a daring advertisement for lebanon.

Radi

Understanding Power

I am really getting to understand why the New York Times called him “arguably the most important,” he really has that thing about him, he keeps up with current events and knows how to link past, present and future, when you read what he writes, especially when it is a collection of speeches and talks, which are by definition easy to understand and entertaining if you are interested in the topic, I would dare say that I don’t agree with everything he says, but then again I would have to have a second look before I claim something.

I bought this book, it does not seize to amaze me, I know many of the facts in the book but when he analyzes them, I literally stop and think, and I hope he reads this some day, till then, I would like to annoy any fans of his by saying this, I met him in York University, Canada and I actually conversed with him.

I will however write here anything that I want to disagree with this great mind, also, I now want a dozen more of his books.

Radi

God’s Warriors

I am not a person to be quickly hail a program or an investigative report, even if done by Christian Amanpour, but last night’s God’s Warriors promised a straight forward, fair and balanced journalism, tonight it will talk about Islamic God Warriors which if anything tells you that it shall be a fun-packed adventure.

I love it when people break the religion taboo and talk about it openly, but when she brought the segment about Jewish fanatics she explained AIPAC and their funding, which is a good step, to tell us that charities in the US are helping in building settlements that, even under US foreign policy, are illegal.

I wonder if I tried to register a charity in the US which supports the legal right of resisting occupation, would it go through as peacefully. I guess that is a challenge to lawyers right there.

Radi

IAF pulls out, good riddance

I seriously believe that the previous municipal elections in Jordan were fair and honest, I looked at the process and I personally believe that it is extremely hard if not impossible to have dual registration or to manipulate the results, each candidate had an option to have a representative present in voting halls and the IAF did take that option.

Islamic Action Front has always accused the government of fraud in the elections while most of the other parties who had losing candidates maintained that the elections were fair, IAF, I believe, fell into the same trap most relegious movements fall inot, they believe that all of the people attending prayers in their mosques and who were helped to be registered by them, will eventually vote for them. Nothing is farther from the truth.

I admire many of the sheiks in mosques who go ahead and run for seats, they contribute alot to the welfare of the society, and provide seriously, whether in terms of morals and ideals or in term of social networking and social justice and honesty.

However, people are not going to automatically poll for such candidates in elections, some people prefer technocrats (as I do) while others simply have tribal loyalties, many others vote for the person who they think will be able to do personal favors for them, regardless of whether or not it will be beneficial to the district and country as a whole.

They lost fair and square, the sooner they will accept it, the sooner they can work to solve it for the parliamentary elections. Where I voted, there were two engineers running from the same clan, I ended up casting a vote for the one whom I thought was in it for the right reasons.

If the IAF would choose prominent members of clans who are well educated and can be considered technocrats, then it is easier for them to win sympathies of clans and people who look for the contentment of the country in services. However, if they continue to choose serious member of the Islamic movement who are educated in theocracy and theology then they will never reach the position of responsibility outside their own organizations.

P.S. I said they will claim fraud and cheat in this election almost a week ago, they did, no surprise.

Radi

You cause it, you pay for it

When I first saw an apartment I liked it was priced at 120 thousand Jordanian Dinars, today I saw the same apartment sold for 320 thousand JD, which reminded of an incident a few summers ago when I went to buy Tomatoes, they were priced at 10p/Kg today the same store sells them for 50p/Kg. You could teach me about inflation all you want but the time frame I am talking about is not what you think it is, unless, of course, you do reside in Amman.

The time frame is two years and we are not located in 2003 Brazil, (although in certain sectors we beat the 77% rate as mentioned earlier) I remember reading somewhere that from 1964 through 1994, the accumulated inflation rate in Brazil fetched 1,000,000,000,000,000 % (that´s one quatrillion percent) !! This fantastic figure is not an estimate; it was calculated by Joelmir Beting, a well respected Brazilian journalist, based on the official inflation numbers.

As I said, we aren’t Brazil, we are Jordan were the inflation rate is controlled through control of prices of commodities and especially necessities. Water, electricity, fuel and cement were until recently all controlled, all but cement still are.

This saved the government the effort of trying to control what i call the inverted up loop. Once they let the cement price go free, so, naturally due to inflation and commercially due to LaFarge’s monopoly of the region’s cement, the prices went nuts as they did worldwide, the prices increased steadily with demand.

Which brings me to my the real point, the demand increased because of the influx of Iraqis moving in to the country, the estimate in about a half a million Iraqis which means an average of 100,000 apartments, this is what is called unnatural growth. If prices of apartments and shops and land went up, followed by the price of fuel, which runs everything in this country, then we can guesstimate that if the Iraqis left the countries the demand will decrease and prices of apartments will go down. The government chose another route, to build subsidized housing for the lowest income in Jordan, this subsidy I believe should be paid by Iraq, whether in terms of oil or otherwise.

I therefore, agree that the Iraqis caused inflation and they should either pay for it or leave, two ways to deflate it. I think that our infrastructure is being stretched thin by this influx, and we should address it head on.

Radi

No Taxation without representation

I believe in this motto as a general guide for any tax system, Because we, as Ammanites, pay an increasingly unrealistic tax-rate for services rendered and not, we should be active in the upcoming elections, although I have certain comments about the state of the greater Amman Municipality or in other words the “amaneh”.

It seems unrealistic that we pay the “amaneh” for pavement but we do them our selves, that we have the highest pothole per meter ratio, while the amaneh has the highest income of any goverment agency. That we still don’t have an efficient numbering system in Amman, although the system is in place, the municipality has not done anything to make it viable. Only recently have the buildings on main streets received decent visible numbering. They could enforce a test on all taxi drivers to memorize the street names, or at least on courier companies. I would accept any positive step in Amman.

The other thing is that half of the council of the “amaneh” is elected while the other is appointed which makes little room for the demands of people, I would accept as a first step the Mayor, to be appointed while the whole council elected.

Radi